BURST
Vancouver’s population shrank by more than 8,000 people from 2024 to 2025, the largest decrease going back more than 20 years, B.C. Stats figures show.
The only other decrease in population during this time was in 2021, when it fell by around 5,000, which was attributed to COVID-19.
Across Metro Vancouver, the population is growing much more slowly after years of massive growth, driven primarily by changes in federal immigration policy. But there is also the impact of the high cost of living, especially in the urban core , experts say.
The effects of the “tectonic shift” in Canadian immigration will likely be seen over the next 12 to 18 months, said Jock Finlayson, chief economist with the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association and senior fellow with the Fraser Institute.
“ For someone who owns property and has been renting out to newcomers, foreign students or temporary foreign workers, there is less demand and downward pressure on rents, which is good for renters, but bad for owners,” he said. “It’s also bad for businesses that rely on consumer spending. For those still looking to hire, the pool of candidates is dwindling.”
Later this fall, the federal government will table an updated plan for 2027 to 2029 immigration levels, he said, and while it might relax restrictions a bit, it’s unlikely to be a significant change.
“It was a big mess and now they are trying to course-correct, but when you do that, it can cause some turbulence,” said Finlayson.
For over 20 years the populations in Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby, Richmond and Coquitlam grew pretty steadily every year.
Starting in 2022, there was a sharp increase as federal immigration policies led to hundreds of thousands of new permanent and temporary residents arriving to bolster post-pandemic economic growth.
But in 2025, Ottawa took a U-turn and reduced the target numbers because the demand for housing, infrastructure and public services was driving up costs.
Vancouver wasn’t alone in seeing its population drop that year. July 2025 figures show the population in Richmond dropped by just over 2,500 residents, while Coquitlam grew by only 780 and Burnaby by 3,573.
While Surrey saw the largest population growth in the region in 2025, by 13,372 people, that growth was far more subdued compared with previous years when the population went up by 21,767 (in 2022); 33,463 (in 2023); and 37,788 (in 2024).
“Ottawa has changed the rules on temporary residents. They’re forcing students and temporary workers to go home and the city of Vancouver is one of the places hit hardest by that,” said David van Hemmen, vice-president of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.
But van Hemmen said Vancouver remains an “incredibly desirable place to live” and doesn’t foresee major employers turning their backs on Vancouver any time soon.
“Vancouver is the province’s economic core and no major employer I talk to believes that will change any time soon,” he said. “Many employers still offer some form of remote or hybrid work, too. The economic base is Vancouver, but only three days a week instead of five.”
That said, as our population trends shift, our transit and transportation infrastructure will need to keep pace, he said. The Surrey-Langley SkyTrain is a good start, but more transit is needed to avoid costly congestion.
“Ensuring better transit south of the Fraser that is connected to the rest of the region will benefit the entire region,” he said.
Van Hemmen added: “Real estate and population are the most significant factors driving our economic development and so they will be closely watched. How we rise to the occasion, and what it means for our transportation, services, employment density, commute times, will be really important.”
Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s city program, who reviewed the municipal population data recorded by B.C. Stats and alerted Postmedia News to the decline in Vancouver, said while there’s no reason for panic, a lot of policy-makers are undoubtedly watching population trends closely, since a lot of federal, provincial and municipal decisions around housing, infrastructure and services are based on that data.
“A lot of policies are based on projections of population growth,” said Yan.
It’s too early to say, Yan said, whether the population decline is a “temporary down blip” or the beginning of a trend “where the gravity of tightening immigration policy, limited economic opportunities and increasing costs of living are beginning to stall population growth and undermining the city’s ability to attract and retain residents.”
And it’s also not clear from the data who the people are that are leaving, though they likely include international students and young families.
But what the data does underscore is the “unevenness of growth” in the region without matching physical, social and cultural infrastructure, Yan said. If people are moving to Surrey but working in other parts of Metro, say Richmond, they’re likely going to encounter transportation problems.
“How and when do we invest in the UBC Line or transit south of the Fraser? This is the kind of tension that’s involved here.”
There is a real competition between municipalities over resources and how decisions are made as a region, agreed Stewart Prest, University of B.C. political science lecturer.
“I think these fluctuating numbers (in population) are only heightening that,” he said. “When Vancouver is so clearly moving in a different direction than other major centres in the region, like Surrey, above all, and, when the core of the metropolis is shedding population, they’re moving to the outskirts, there’s clearly an indication that something has gone awry with housing planning and availability. We want to have a dense urban area. We want to have people able to live close to where they work and that graph is telling you the opposite story at the moment.”
It’s possible the decrease in population in Vancouver is a one-year blip, but Prest thinks there’s enough evidence to say there has been a shift. The question in the next few years will be if the decrease stabilizes or becomes more acute.
With files from Douglas Quan